Rating: 
Summary: Ho hum...
Review: Another video of fake Shaolin Monks performing intermediate level contemporary wushu. Not skillful enough to be accepted by one of the professional provincial teams, they shave their heads and dress up like monks to perform for the tourists visiting the Shaolin Temple museum in Henan. The more athletic ones get to perform on one of the fake monk foreign tours, but never inside China.
One "monk" performs nanquan as though it's changquan; no power, no root, just speed and improper technique. As any Chinese stylist knows, nanquan is southern fist from Fujian and never existed at the Songshan temple in the north.
Another "monk" performs meihua tanglangquan (very poorly) that originated in Shangdong and also never existed at the Songshan temple. If you want to see it done correctly, get a copy of "The Shaolin Temple" and watch Yu Hai do it.
The so-called "superhuman feats" they perform at the end of the video are standard, run-of-the-mill circus "strongman" tricks that rely solely on basic physics and are commonly performed by the "hard qigong masters" from China. The melodramatic preparations they did before each trick were totally unnecessary for the execution of the tricks. There is no magic in them.
Everyone that I've spoken with in my travels across China knows there are no longer any real martial monks at the temple museum. It's kind of an inside joke on the foreigners. But people continue to fall for the charade.
Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: I had first found out about this dvd on line several months ago at their website... There was a sample video and lots of information about these monks. The show is a great display of traditional Shaolin Kung Fu along with feats of great mental and physical strength. Any one that yearns for more understanding of the Shaolin monks, or a great martial arts spectacle will get it on this dvd.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't stop watching
Review: I was only going to watch 5 minutes of this DVD, and dedicate more time for it later, but as it turned out, I could NOT stop watching. I wound up watching the whole thing. The "actors" are actual students from Shaolin. Wheel of Life is the Chinese equivalent of the Irish "Riverdance." The story is about a group of monks from Shaolin who help the Chinese king defeat barbarians, only later to be betrayed by him for their unwillingness to stay as imperial guards. All the performance is done on the stage, and it was filmed rather well. Sometimes you view from the audiences' perspective, sometimes you get an extreme close-up. The performance was stunning. The acrobatic and gymastic skills of the actors just made my jaw drop. I found it very similar to watching a Cirque du Soleil show, more than anything. If you're a serious kung-fu afficionado like the reviewer below, you'll be disappointed, but for the general public, I believe you'll find this DVD highly entertaining, and probably view again and again.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't stop watching
Review: I was only going to watch 5 minutes of this DVD, and dedicate more time for it later, but as it turned out, I could NOT stop watching. I wound up watching the whole thing. The "actors" are actual students from Shaolin. Wheel of Life is the Chinese equivalent of the Irish "Riverdance." The story is about a group of monks from Shaolin who help the Chinese king defeat barbarians, only later to be betrayed by him for their unwillingness to stay as imperial guards. All the performance is done on the stage, and it was filmed rather well. Sometimes you view from the audiences' perspective, sometimes you get an extreme close-up. The performance was stunning. The acrobatic and gymastic skills of the actors just made my jaw drop. I found it very similar to watching a Cirque du Soleil show, more than anything. If you're a serious kung-fu afficionado like the reviewer below, you'll be disappointed, but for the general public, I believe you'll find this DVD highly entertaining, and probably view again and again.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't stop watching
Review: I was only going to watch 5 minutes of this DVD, and dedicate more time for it later, but as it turned out, I could NOT stop watching. I wound up watching the whole thing. The "actors" are actual students from Shaolin. Wheel of Life is the Chinese equivalent of the Irish "Riverdance." The story is about a group of monks from Shaolin who help the Chinese king defeat barbarians, only later to be betrayed by him for their unwillingness to stay as imperial guards. All the performance is done on the stage, and it was filmed rather well. Sometimes you view from the audiences' perspective, sometimes you get an extreme close-up. The performance was stunning. The acrobatic and gymastic skills of the actors just made my jaw drop. I found it very similar to watching a Cirque du Soleil show, more than anything. If you're a serious kung-fu afficionado like the reviewer below, you'll be disappointed, but for the general public, I believe you'll find this DVD highly entertaining, and probably view again and again.
Rating:
Summary: shaolin kung fu at it's best.
Review: I was watching this at a telivison show. The monks are so fast I wish I had there speed. The monks ae so lovable and so campsionate. I am surpized thet don't harm themselves They have this thing called chi. I love the video. Masters of kung fu get this video now. I recomend this to everyone. Thanks, Mary E. Putnam
Rating:
Summary: shaolin kung fu at it's best.
Review: I was watching this at a telivison show. The monks are so fast I wish I had there speed. The monks ae so lovable and so campsionate. I am surpized thet don't harm themselves They have this thing called chi. I love the video. Masters of kung fu get this video now. I recomend this to everyone. Thanks, Mary E. Putnam
Rating:
Summary: wheel of life
Review: I've been seeing a lot movies and performing about kung-fu and martial art, but this's a best one I've ever seen berfore.The way they perform their shaolin forms are so perfect. This is a great DVD or VHS you should have at home and especcial one for whoever is learning kung-fu or wu-shu.....
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: If you ever wanted to know what Jet Li's origin is, this is as close as you can get. You'll be captivated by the virtually non-stop, lightning-fast moves by several shaolin monks both young and old. In the style of a Broadway musical, you'll be glued to your screen and thankful your DVD has a quick reverse and slow motion to catch what you'll definately miss on the first viewing. No wires here. No second takes. It's filmed in front of a live audience. This is what martial arts is about.
Rating: 
Summary: Beyond Kung-Fu Kitche, or: 'Shaolin for Dummies'
Review: It is no exaggeration to say that the secrets of the East - most specifically, the astounding physical feats of the mystical _kung-fu_ - have taken hold of recent mass-media output and, by extension, the mass-audience it serves/placates. Extremely successful cinema such as *Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,* and the *Matrix* franchise have melded the ambiguous philosophies of Buddhism/Taoism with plenty of stylistic [stunts]: and in hindsight, it's not surprising that this graceful, violence-as-dance instinct-invigoration was, for a period, so eagerly embraced by explosion-jaded spectators. Unfortunately, the cycle of exploitation has almost come full circle, with Asian-style action so thoroughly replicated in subsequent substandard product that a "wire-fu" backlash has begun among moviegoers. Do we really need to see abject bastardization a la Bulletproof Monk, Underworld, the latest Jackie Chan 'vehicle'? (. . . oh how the mighty have fallen. . .!) And yet, despite the 'simulacra stain,' an enormous amount of history, culture and spiritual power resides in the wushu, and the very difficulty of it - the austere commitment, the required devotion to meditative philosophy, and sheer physical hardship - practically guarantee that the 'pure' form shall remain and thrive, in the dedicated few, while trendshapers move on and exploit elsewhere, until the cycle is ripe once again for re-examination and the profits to be reaped therein. . . (. . .pause for mental breath. . .). Thankfully, the _true_ aspects of this refined Asian aesthetic have been faithfully recorded and expounded upon by stanch enthusiasts, a sterling example being this DVD here. Although kung fu was developed long before the Shaolin Temple came into existence (circa 495 AD), its teachings were, up to that point, primarily used for martial advancement: superior training most often equaled unsurpassed victory. With the advent of Shaolin, however, a greater depth and spirituality was infused in basic form, for founding monk Bodhidharma advocated a meditative focus as the primary goal. In Chinese philosophy, extreme tranquility generates dynamic energy; the physical release/expression of such energy can be seen vividly in this, *Shaolin: Wheel of Life,* the first and only media representation of the form/theory to be fully supported by the Temple itself. And what a representation it is! Crafted by artisans wholly dedicated to providing a core-authentic entertaining experience, *Shaolin: Wheel of Life* combines historical tragedy, melodrama, hardcore wushu training (empty hands and weapons), and superhuman endurance feats, all presented in a sort of neo-Chinese Opera format (traditional instruments in modern music-scoring; traditional wushu form in modern choreography). Like a session of martial-art practice, the tension and release of the performance builds over the course of the hour+ DVD, until peaking with a set of exercises that are truly astounding to behold, even if it is via a second-seat medium (this DVD was recorded during the tour). The potential of human concentration and advancement - of both the physical and the mental, for the one supports the other - is explicitly revealed in these last ten to fifteen minutes; as a practitioner of Shantung Black Tiger form, I myself felt competing sensations of compassionate pride, artistic jealousy and sublime satisfaction in viewing these monks, the culmination and pinnacle of _unfettered_ human achievement. As a reviewer stated below, this is not an 'advanced' representation of martial-art mastery - *that* sort of ability is kept away from barbarian eyes, I'm afraid - but it is an excellent start for anyone curious to continue beyond the recent cinematic excursions as popularized by Ang Lee and the Wachowski Bros. I rate *Shaolin: Wheel of Life* four stars due to the fact that a couple of the drama sections, notably the climax, cross the delicate taste-boundary of good/bad melodrama, and become rather tiresome in repeat viewings; also, it does feel that, at times, the Monks are held back in their ability, confined by the choreographed necessity of a theater production. Still, this is an excellent DVD for fan and novice alike. Highly recommended.
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